About Lucy Emily Smith

Lucy Emily Woodruff Smith (1869-1937)

Lucy Emily Woodruff Smith, daughter of Wilford, Jr., and Emily Jane Smith Woodruff, was born 10 January 1869 in St. Thomas, Arizona (now part of Nevada). Her parents had been called there on a pioneering mission in 1867. Upon being released from their mission the family moved to Randolph, in Northern Utah, and later to Salt Lake City where her mother died on 8 May 1878. After graduating from the public schools and attending the University of Utah for a year and a half, Lucy W. received clerical training in the office of the city and county surveyor and in the office of the county recorder. She became an expert in record keeping and map making. This training proved valuable for the performance of her assigned duties in the office of the Southern States Mission in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where she had been called as a missionary with her husband, George Albert Smith, whom she had married on 25 May 1892. Upon her return from the Southern States Mission, Lucy W. served in the positions of ward president in the Seventeenth Ward Young Ladies Mutual Improvement Association (YLMIA) and counselor to the Salt Lake Stake president successively. In 1894, when the Salt Lake Stake YLMIA was organized, Lucy W. was selected as treasurer. In 1900, the Granite and Jordan stakes were formed out of the southern portion of the Salt Lake Stake and Lucy W. Smith was selected as first counselor to the president of the Salt Lake Stake YLMIA. The Stake was again divided in 1904 and the new Salt Lake State YLMIA was organized with Lucy W. as president. In October 1908, Lucy W. was called as an aide to the General Board of the YLMIA. She attended many conventions and conferences of stakes and local organizations. Besides her work in the YLMIA, for several years Lucy W. was a member of the Seventeenth Ward choir; as a member, teacher, and secretary of Sunday School; and as a charter member of the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers and Daughters of the American Revolution. In 1903, Lucy W. was one of a group who visited Great Britain, Holland, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, and France. In June 1919, she accompanied her husband and two children to England, her husband having been appointed to preside over the European Mission of the church. While residing in England, she visited on the continent and represented the YLMIA to the International Council of Women Congress held in Oslo (Christiana) Norway in the fall of 1920. On 5 November 1937 Lucy W. died at her home in Salt Lake City.

Marriage and family

George Albert Smith

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In 1892, Smith married Lucy Emily Woodruff, the daughter of Wilford Woodruff, Jr., in the Manti Temple. The couple later had three children. Lucy had spent much of her time growing up in the household of her grandfather Wilford Woodruff, and looked on him as almost more of a father than a grandfather.[1] Smith's son George Albert Smith, Jr. became a professor at Harvard Business School.

Smith and his new wife Lucy were missionaries in the LDS Church's Southern States Mission under President J. Golden Kimball from 1892 to 1894. Smith was appointed mission secretary.

George Albert Smith is the only general authority to have served with his own wife while being a proselyting elder not a mission president. On the 25 May 1892 George Albert Smith married Lucy Emily Woodruff, his childhood sweetheart, in the Manti Temple. George Albert Smith was 22. Lucy was 23. Lucy was the daughter of Wilford Woodruff Jr and Emily Jane Smith. Her mother died on 8 May 1878 so she spent her time each day at her grandfather Wilford Woodruff's home. She became very close to her grandparents. George Albert Smith's family were neighbors of the Woodruff family. As a kid he was known to pull her braids. They were both known for their theatrical performances as teenagers. A month after his marriage he was called on his second mission to the Southern States. She was called herself a few months later to the same mission.